Big Boots
by succedissidor
Summary: You're my Man-O-War, and the worms will come for you. Mello, Matt, boots. A series of very short vignettes. Ten years in 1200 words. Follows cannon, no slash unless you put it there yourself. Please read it?


_I wish you could see me  
Dressed for the kill  
What a nasty surprise  
You're my man-o-war  
And the worms will come for you_

_****_

Big Boots

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Mello was trying _his_ boots on when he came back from lunch. Mello, the perpetually barefoot, delicate little imp, was knee deep in black leather three sizes too big, and it was all Matt could do not to burst out laughing at him. Mello did NOT like to be laughed at, and Matt was in no mood for a week-long sulk, so he choked it down, stood in the doorway, stared. Mello looked at him, nonplussed. He finished wrapping the laces around, tied them, and popped up, striking a pose. "What do you think?"

"Mello. I think you're wearing my boots."

Mello thought this over for a moment, before ruffling his feathers in irritation.

"And? I look bad-ass!"

"You look bad-ass enough playing soccer freakin' _barefoot_. C'mon, Mello, take 'em off."

"These are mine now." His eyes glinted, steely.

Matt knew it was useless to argue.

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Mello worked in extremes- if he wasn't Very Happy he was Pissed. If not Right, then Wrong. If he wasn't First, he must be Last.

Matt understood grey areas, but that wasn't really something you could teach someone.

He was the only one to notice that if Mello wasn't in clunky steel-toed boots, he was barefoot.

Maybe there was some sort of symbolism in that.

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Matt wondered what it was that kept Mello tethered to the ground. Certainly the boy's head was in the clouds, as the expression went. His ambition soared, he reached for the moon, he even looked like a damned angel. It wouldn't have surprised Matt- not much, anyway- if he'd woken one morning to find the window open and Mello flown back to Never-never-land. But then he heard THUMP THUMP THUMP coming up the hall and it sounded like God himself stamping out the vineyards, and how someone could actually swagger while stomping so hard he would never know. Sometimes it seemed- maybe it was the enormous weight of those boots that kept him bound to earth.

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When he took them off, though, he was quiet as a cat, and seemed so much smaller, somehow, and vulnerable.

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Mello grew into the boots, sort of. (His personality had always been big enough.) They'd stopped slipping off when he ran by the time he left Wammy's. Matt supposed that was a good thing, since it was raining, and it was cold, and Mello had a long way to go. Besides that, they had belonged to Matt first, and it was almost like a part of him had been able to go with Mello. Almost.

He left the window open that night, just in case a lost boy changed his mind and came home.

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Mello had always liked leather. Not just boots- his wardrobe had expanded over the years into a squeaking black mass of dead animal and zippers. He never went barefoot anymore- he wore pointed shoes, spiked belts, chains, gloves. It was like hiding in sight, tiny prey in defensive gear. But he had always been fearless- so no one could say what it was he was protecting himself from.

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Mello had always liked leather, and Matt supposed that was a good thing, considering it would soon compose half of his face. His first thought, when Mello called him reluctantly asking for help, was 'the angel has finally fallen into the flame-' but that wasn't fair. Mello wasn't evil, wasn't supposed to have been a killer, wasn't the bad guy. He was just a little kid playing dress up, or a criminal mastermind. Whichever. Right now, though, he was a scared teenager who was probably going to die and Matt could not for the life of him tell where the charred left boot ended and the charred left leg began.

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Mello liked to put his feet on the table, Matt like to smoke indoors, and they both liked to fight about these points, and it was something to take their minds off of Kira and Near and this unending cycle of losing. And neither really cared if the boots left scuff marks or if the smoke stained the curtains. Not like they would be here long, anyway.

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Mello limped when he walked, although he hid it rather well and Matt probably only noticed it because he knew how he had walked before. Sometimes he missed the seven-league strides of a kid with a bright future, because he knew what he saw now was the wary tread of a man who didn't have one.

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Mello told Matt his plan, and closed his eyes, and sighed, and went silent. It was suicide for the blond, at least, and probably for Matt too, which was a shame and a blessing. If both of them died, then there would be no one to remember.

"Well. It's your funeral. I guess you'll be a hero, sort of." Mello laughed for the first time in a long time, and shook his head.

"I will. I think would like a procession, with a caparisoned horse following my casket."

"You hate horses. It would have to be a motorcycle. And I don't think they've worked out how to make them drive themselves. And there's no stirrups to hold your sad, empty boots. I don't think you've thought this out very well, at all. I guess you'll just have to live."

"Well, okay. If you say so."

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His vision went white then black, and he felt the cigarette slide from his lips. He knew on some level that he should be in pain, but his mind had no room for that. He had seen, as the bullets ripped through him, an angel of death- all black leather and wings and metal and heavy boots. He thought a prayer- half a prayer- and then nothing.

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In an abandoned church outside of Nagano a fire started, spread, and devoured the pawns of an epic chess game drawing to its close. A black boot slipped against a gas pedal, flooding the engine, and the explosion incinerated everything within ten feet, unsettled a support beam, brought the roof crashing down.

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_From poisoned clouds  
To poison the world  
You're my man-o-war  
You're my man-o-war  
And the worms will come for you  
Big Boots  
And the worms will come for you  
Big Boots_

_For You_

_radiohead, **Big Boots**_

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A/N - I hate songfic. I hate when authors interject lyrics all over the place in their stories. That said, I love this song dearly, and when the first little ideas started taking shape, I put it on repeat and this wrote itself. So look this song up, it's quite amazing and I think it fits Mello pretty well. This is my favourite version of the lyrics, as there is no official version of the song.

PS I LIKE COMMAS CAN YOU TELL

Disclaimed! Mello and Matt, Near and Kira, and the boots and motorcycle all belong to Ohba Tsugumi and Obata Takeshi. Big Boots belongs to radiohead, although I don't think they're using it. Caparisoned Horses are a sad tradition, and haunting. But I don't think they belong to anyone.


End file.
